Off to AK in T-1 Days!

I feel like the only way to prep for Alaska is to just go to Alaska. Nonetheless, Colorado has been the backdrop for all my training and prep along with a quick visit to Southern California, Hueco, and the Red River Gorge. Bouldering and steep sandstone equates to long mixed climbs in the Ruth Gorge yeah? I'll let you know.

Jason was kind enough to donate his raffle prize of a free month to Alpine Training Center, where Connie whipped me into shape and I finally got an idea of what Chris has been up to the last 14 months:

Lots of sandbag carries, push presses, ball slams, and slashers. I got schooled on work-outs like the airdyne, turkish getups, and farmer carries. Towards the end of my month, Connie tailored it for AK. Good times! Not only did it get my legs stronger and my forearms pumped, it worked a lot of my opposing muscle groups we climbers tend to neglect. I may pick it up later in the summer to help prevent overuse injuries from climbing, especially my shoulders.

A couple trips to Hessie Chimney with Jason and Blake helped keep my dry tooling in tune. Luckily it was fat this season and, all in all, it is as quality and classic as any winter climb in the Park:
Doug "Show me how to Dougie" Shepherd helped prep me for the trip with a winter attempt of the Diamond. The forecast called for sunny skies but 60-mph SW winds. We took our chances, headed up at 4am, and after hiking through some heavy gusts, the wind died down below the sheltering walls of Long Peak's giant east face. The approach to North Chimney from Mills Lake was a snow slog and Doug led the first block of getting up and over to the base of D7. The fresh snow slowed us down but, hey, what better training can you get for AK! The last slabbey stretch of the Chimney required Doug to shed his gloves and make some committing moves. Broadway was in rare form - steep walls of snow made the usual cake walk more interesting:




My block was to aid D7 and our late afternoon start meant only a few hours of light before I would be aiding upwards in the dark. Under the narrow view of my headlamp, I made slow but steady progress from piece to piece on straightforward A1 with the occasional balancing act traversing ledges in my double boots. But, it didn't feel right the entire time and I kept looking for the D7 crux I remembered from the summer of 2009. I figured any vertical gain brought us closer to the summit and the "super moon" encouraged me on. 4-5 pitches up by 2:00 am in the morning, I called down to Doug. The uncertainty of being on or off route, plus our tired bodies, brought me to rap down to Doug and take a break for food, water, and rest at a hanging belay. My down pants, Phantom 6000 double boots, and puffy jacket kept me just warm enough with the occasional leg pumps to get blood past my constricting harness. After a round of water and soupy Ramen, the MSR Reactor pot handle broke off, sailing into the darkness and ending our supply of new water. It's 4:00 am and Doug gives his first aid pitch a go. Swallows swooped by the belay and I dozed off in between feeding out rope and looking behind my back at the horizon, waiting anxiously for the sun to rise to warm my body. The Diamond's granite face eventually began to glow in the morning sun and we savored the moment. After jugging up to Doug, we realized we were at the base of the last pitch of Black Dagger, with a rotten, broken seam and chimney higher above. With no water and no cam hooks, we opted to rap down, where the stove pot waited on the deep snow of Broadway. The rap off Broadway provided more entertainment as nearly all of the rap stations were buried in snow.

Let me sum this up: incredible experience, great partner, brutal, and awesome at the same time. 35.5 hours car-to-car without a proper bivy and sleep - my longest single push in the mountains.

After a trip to the Red River Gorge heal-hooking up huecos, Doug convinced me to take one last alpine trip. This time it wouldn't be a day and a half outing - just a pre-work jaunt up Brain Freeze on Mt. Otis in the Park. Both Doug and I had climbed the route in 2010 so we planned to simul climb as much as possible. Doug took the first block, simuling through the unusually fat Changing Corners and all the way to the chockstone. From there, I linked two pitches out of the chimney system. 9:15 am. We skipped the short final step and rapped down so I could get back for half a day of work. I'm not sure it counts as morning alpinism if I got in at 1pm, but hey, it was another awesome morning in the mountains:

So Alaska here we come. Graham and I are super excited. I'm glad he is finally back from Eritrea, Africa - it was hard to plan for Alaska when your partner can only reach you via satellite phone. We are fully geared up and I just need to pack up tonight. And I couldn't ask for a better partner - Graham and I began our adventures together 10 years ago when he was 14 and I was 18. Since then, we have gone off on our own paths and repeatedly come back together from time to time to "stir the rad pot."

Sunday, we fly into the Ruth on Talkeetna Air to do a little window shopping. We will set up camp on the main Ruth Glacier and, weather pending, explore some new lines!

Thanks for all the support everyone! - especially Arun as I run off on missions into the mountains and chase my obsessions.

Rock Romance in Hueco Tanks, Texas

Brought to you by guest blogger Leici Hendrix!

It all started with Meatless Monday, our weekly get-together with Joe and Arun. Over delicious vegetarian food, we planned our Valentine’s Day adventure to Hueco Tanks in El Paso, Texas. Hueco Tanks is a world-famous bouldering area known for its unique hollowed out features that hold water during the dry season.

We decided to take Joe’s Honda Passport on its sunset voyage and piled into the car for an all-nighter. We arrived at the Hueco Rock Ranch early Friday morning, ready for a day on North Mountain. Hueco Tanks is an access sensitive area—there are restrictions on how many people can be in an area at any given time. Reservations or guided tours are required, so it can be difficult to navigate on your first visit. After watching an informative video about the history of the park, we were off to Warm Up Boulder.

A few warm-up problems later, we decided to head over to the Potatoes at the top of the chains and ended up at the Grenade boulder to work the classic V2 “Nobody here gets out alive.” This was one of my favorite problems of the trip. The opening moves require intense heel-hooking action on perfect rock.

Leici spots Arun on a big move

We ended our day with a trip to the sunny New Meadow. There were plenty of quality moderates to be found. Joe and Ben even found a project, Lobster Claw (V5), that they’ll return to one day.

Joe traverses a quality V1

We left in search of good Mexican food and margaritas. Unfortunately, we found bad Mexican food and margaritas that were actually just shots of tequila. Lack of sleep caught up with us and we eagerly crawled into our beds at the Rock Ranch.

The next morning, we woke up to warmer weather and headed out to The Morgue on North Mountain. T-Bone Shuffle (V4) caught Joe’s eye. After his attempt at an onsight, Ben and Joe took turns working the classic line.

Ben working the crux

I’d heard good things about the Gymnasium, so we hiked to the top of the chains and squeezed Joe’s new Mondo through a small slot in the rock. The Gym is chock full of highball, hueco-covered warm-ups. We climbed leisurely and soaked up the sun for a few hours.

View of the Gymnasium

Lunch in the sun fueled our search for what most consider one of the best boulder problems in Hueco Tanks—Ghetto Simulator (V2). As Joe said, it was a hike “for a boulderer.”

It’s more like a route

We decided to call it a day and hiked back to the car. Arun volunteered to make yummy Indian food for dinner, so Joe cracked a bottle of wine and we relaxed at the ranch. As Arun was finishing up dinner, Joe decided to force the pressure cooker open because he was too hungry to wait. At least, that’s my version of the story. Lentils and veggies exploded all over the kitchen, covering everyone and everything in sight. Fortunately, Arun forgave Joe (thanks to the chocolate, heart-shaped cake that Joe presented to her earlier in the evening) and there was enough food left in the pot to have an awesome dinner.

Arun and Joe in happier times

A guided tour in East Mountain was on the agenda for Sunday. Our guide, Cory, led us to Kid’s Stuff, where we played around on easy warm-ups with fun heel hooks and big huecos.

Me, being awesome

Cory led us over to Dragon’s Den, where we got on all of the classics—Ostracizer (V3), Hobbit in a Blender (V5), Satan, Satan, Satan (V1), and Dragonfly (V5).

Leici on Ostracizer

Joe’s proud send of Hobbit in a Blender

Ben’s last minute send on Dragonfly

East Mountain is also full of pictographs from Native American tribes that inhabited the area around Hueco Tanks. Cory took us to see a few of the drawings, along with Hueco Tank’s only year-round water source.

A well-preserved pictograph in East Mountain

Before leaving Hueco Tanks, we headed over to Warm-Up Roof and climbed a few more problems. Exhausted, we drove back to the ranch and packed up to head to Albuquerque. On our way out, we finally found amazing (and cheap!!) Mexican food at a tiny little place inside a meat market.

Hilarious group photo

Thanks to Arun and Joe for fun times and an awesome weekend of bouldering in Texas!

Ode to my Passport

I know, I know, its just a conglomeration of steel and plastic, but I've been driving the Honda Passport since I was 16! That's...42% of my life! All in all, I have 195,000 miles on the SUV and its taken me to and through 26 states.

I drove an '88 Civic Hatchback for the first 8 months of my driving life - tinted the windows, added a chrome exhaust pipe, and squeezed in a 4.5 foot wide subwoofer. It was fun too and, dare say, I caused a lot of trouble in it after soccer practices "getting pizza" when I was really getting a cart of eggs. Nuph said.

Then my folks wanted me in a "safer" car with airbags and the such, so they handed me down the 95.5 Passport. It didn't have the high schooler zip I sought after, but it only took me a nanosecond to realize I could fly up icy dirt roads at 60 mph and skid around steep corners on my way to the trailhead for an Adventure Club outing. Maybe making the 14-year-old freshmans nearly piss their pants in the back seat made me evil, but I enjoyed it.

Let me just preface and say I've never been in a moving vehicle accident with that car. It's been rock solid and so has my driving record. Except for when I ripped off someone's bumper with the 12-foot long Uhaul trying to move my crap from Seattle to Boulder. But that was the Uhaul's fault, not mine. And I've only hit non-moving obstacles, like trees, rocks, and parked minivans. Also neither the Passport's nor my fault.

So why this memoir? The repair bills sky-rocketed to keep it going and I had just about driven it to the ground. So I traded it in, but it seems sacrilegious to talk about the new car on the block. Only time will tell if it will provide as many memories as the Passport.

I won't bore you with a 12-year narrative, but here are a few photo-documented highlights:

My first big road trip - Erich and I took a post-high school graduation trip driving down the Pacific coastline from WA to SoCal, skimboarding and camping along the way:

Just one of the gnarly approaches required for reaching trailheads in the Cascades - thank you Passport for kicking ass:

Courtney and I camping out at the Gorge for the first Sasquatch Festival in 2002:

Erich joined me the next year when I drove the Passport from Seattle to New York in one 45 hour push. This is what I remember from the trip:

Steve and I looking grungy after two weeks of climbing through Wyoming on my return voyage from my sophomore year at Cornell:

Summer of 04 I hit the 100k mark on a trip to Cannon Beach, OR, my favorite camping spot. My all-time road trip partner, Erich, was appropriately there to enjoy this moment:
Final cross-country road trip from NY to WA with Gerry, where we met up with Vijay on his trip back east for a few days of climbing at City of Rocks, ID:

I soloed the drive to the Bugaboos trailhead to meet Kyle, Brian, and Jeff for a week of climbing. The chicken wire is porcupine protection:
Mt. Shasta on my move from Seattle to Colorado in 2009. I stopped in Malibu to pick up Arun "on the way" and got an average of 12 mpg with that Uhaul in tow:

On a romantic Valentines Day trip with Arun to Wyoming when the temps were subzero:

Hat's off pal, you'll be missed

But kiwis don't fly

Uno: My sister had a baby girl! Samantha Noelle Rush: 6 lbs 12 ounces and healthy:

Dos: American Alpine Journal posted a report by Blake Herrington on our route Flight of the Kiwi from August 2010 found here:


Tres: Its been a fun mix of ice and rock climbing in the last month - here are a few highlights:

Arun's first ice climb at Ouray!

Jason leading Cabin Fever in Cody, WYJason on the beautiful ice of Wyoming Wave above Cabin Fever

Chris and Doug heading up the final rambling pitches of Sendero to join the party, Cody

Echo Cliffs, Santa Monica Mountains
SoCal Bouldering
Serpentine on Weeping Wall at Tahquitz and Suicide - slabalicious!